Q:
If a man comes to your door collecting tzedaka and he claims that he has thirteen children at home, how can you tell if he’s honest?
A:
How can you tell how many children a man has? Well, if a man comes and he is clean shaven so you have a right to suspect he doesn’t have thirteen children because ordinary people don’t have that. However, if he has two long peyos hanging down like this, so it’s plausible. He probably comes from Williamsburg and in Williamsburg there are still authentic Jews left.
However, if you wish, you can tell him you’ll mail him something and you’ll take his address. So you see if it’s a Williamsburg address. If it says Ross Street or Hooper Street or Lee Avenue, so it’s one of these places and he’s that type of a Jew then you can be almost certain that it’s true and so you should mail the money to him. And just because you bothered him not to give him cash, so you should make it a little bigger check.
And even if he happens to be a childless Jew, which I doubt, but he’s going to spend the money in the corner grocery store where there are thirteen children. You can be sure of that – he’ll spend the money in Williamsburg among those types of families where there are thirteen children so it’s going for a good cause.
TAPE # 113 (Erev Purim 1976)
